Since the invention of the wheel mankind has been busy trying to avoid walking from place to place. There is evidence of camel pulled wheeled vehicles as far back as 3000-4000 BC. The use of wheeled vehicles has since become so widespread it is hard to picture a human society without wheeled vehicles.
Accordingly, mankind has endlessly endeavored to improve and create new wheeled vehicles and related devices. Particular interest over recent years has been afforded to the field of personal vehicles. As mankind gets lazier and lazier and space for large vehicles becomes more and more scarce, it has become quite common to view people, particularly in urban areas, riding around on personal vehicles, often times motorized personal vehicles. This flurry of activity in the field of personal vehicles has promoted many advances in the field and the development of many new types of vehicles, new variations of existing vehicles and new developments and improvements relating to the components of such vehicles (e.g. brakes, gears, grips, etc).
Nonetheless, despite all the progress mankind has made in the field of wheeled vehicles, the wheel at the base of all these vehicles has stayed remarkably similar to its origin. It is remarkable to see how similar a modern day bicycle wheel is to a Roman Chariot wheel.
One exception to this principle has been the invention of the “Hubless Wheel” in different variations (see Takeo et. Al. U.S. Pat. No. 2,843,426, Lidov, U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,096 & Sbarro U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,196)
A hubless wheel (also known as a rim-rider or centerless wheel) is a type of wheel with no center hub. To be precise, however, the hub does exist, it is simply hollow and almost as big as the wheel itself. The axle is hollow, following the wheel at very close tolerances, leaving an empty space at the center of the wheel.
Hubless wheels, until now, have remained mostly theoretical concepts, seeing very little practical implementation and virtually no implementations realizing the advantage of the wheels—namely the hollow center. One implementation of a personal vehicle including hubless wheels can be found in Karpman et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,630. This implementation, however, provides a sporty type of vehicle, useful for recreation yet greatly lacking as a transportational vehicle, as it requires great skill to maneuver and is difficult to propel over any significant distance.
It would therefore be desirable to provide further personal vehicles utilizing hubless wheels, and particularly their advantages, and perhaps to provide a self propelled vehicle of this sort.